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Topic: Rude not to check voice mail? (Read 18822 times)

If your DD forgot to respond to just one e-mail in what you consider to be the right time frame regardless of what she considers the right time frame, you would think she's incredibly rude? I think that's completely unreasonable. Not everyone has the same standards. We can accept the other person's standards or we can keep upsetting ourselves, which is exactly what I think the mom did.

Yes, I do--I did. I feel that I have a perfectly reasonable standard for "the right time frame"---two days, in the specific situation w/ my DD that I'm thinking of. My DD was incredibly rude to me. And in my own situation, I may need to make that more clear.

In the OP's case, normally she and her mom talk every 1 to 2 weeks. But since her mother actually called her, I'm wondering why she didn't at least listen to the message--I'd think that if this was "business as usual," why would she have called at all? So I'd think you'd listen just to be sure. There *are* other reasons people call you--this is a perfectly example of it.

And I don't buy the "I don't have time to listen to the voicemail because we have responsibilities all day Saturday." One of your responsibilities in life is to be in contact with the people *in* your life.

I can see forgetting--but then that's an apology, not a "my mom is wrong, and I'm right, aren't I?" situation. Or a "Mom, this isn't working, let's work out a way for us to communicate stuff like this more clearly," in which case you disable your voicemail or you get your voicemail to text you.

Instead of arguing with her about it, what's wrong with just saying something like:

Sorry I didn't call you back sooner, and I missed the dinner, mom. I had this crazy conference last week and didn't really feel well to boot, so when I WAS home, I wasn't really up to returning calls/talking on the phone.

I'm just not really understanding the big production here.... it was a crappy week, under 'normal' circumstances, your original post says you'd have called her back in a few days. Your update says a week, but whatever. It was what it was.... it's not like the mother was being passive by leaving a message, and LadyL wasn't being passive by not calling back right away.

If your DD forgot to respond to just one e-mail in what you consider to be the right time frame regardless of what she considers the right time frame, you would think she's incredibly rude? I think that's completely unreasonable. Not everyone has the same standards. We can accept the other person's standards or we can keep upsetting ourselves, which is exactly what I think the mom did.

Yes, I do--I did. I feel that I have a perfectly reasonable standard for "the right time frame"---two days, in the specific situation w/ my DD that I'm thinking of. My DD was incredibly rude to me. And in my own situation, I may need to make that more clear.

In the OP's case, normally she and her mom talk every 1 to 2 weeks. But since her mother actually called her, I'm wondering why she didn't at least listen to the message--I'd think that if this was "business as usual," why would she have called at all? So I'd think you'd listen just to be sure. There *are* other reasons people call you--this is a perfectly example of it.

And I don't buy the "I don't have time to listen to the voicemail because we have responsibilities all day Saturday." One of your responsibilities in life is to be in contact with the people *in* your life.

I can see forgetting--but then that's an apology, not a "my mom is wrong, and I'm right, aren't I?" situation. Or a "Mom, this isn't working, let's work out a way for us to communicate stuff like this more clearly," in which case you disable your voicemail or you get your voicemail to text you.

Even if your DD feels that 4 days is a better time frame? I think that's what makes the difference. The OP and her mom do not agree on what is a reasonable time frame, but by not accepting that, the mom is letting her feelings be hurt. Yes, letting.

Here's an example that I think it analogous. The Eagle takes at least 30 minutes to wake up; I take less than 10. I use to use my standard to wake him up to get ready to go somewhere. When he wouldn't immediately get out of bed and get going, I would be angry that he was taking so long. It doesn't take me that long, so surely it shouldn't take him any longer...except that it does. Instead of being angry that he wasn't holding up to my standards, I adjusted by beginning to wake him up at least an hour before I would need to be up. I would wake him up, return 15 minutes later, then another 15 until he actually got out of bed. I could have kept expecting him to get up and go within 10 minutes and then keep getting angry that he wasn't awake yet, or I could change my expectations of him, behave differently so that he met those expectations, and stop being angry. I chose the latter.

In the OP's case, her mother could stop expecting her to answer voicemails right away and then she won't be angry when they don't get answered right away.

If your DD forgot to respond to just one e-mail in what you consider to be the right time frame regardless of what she considers the right time frame, you would think she's incredibly rude? I think that's completely unreasonable. Not everyone has the same standards. We can accept the other person's standards or we can keep upsetting ourselves, which is exactly what I think the mom did.

And I don't buy the "I don't have time to listen to the voicemail because we have responsibilities all day Saturday." One of your responsibilities in life is to be in contact with the people *in* your life.

I can see forgetting--but then that's an apology, not a "my mom is wrong, and I'm right, aren't I?" situation. Or a "Mom, this isn't working, let's work out a way for us to communicate stuff like this more clearly," in which case you disable your voicemail or you get your voicemail to text you.

Saturday I was captain of a team participating in a charity sports tournament which was an all day commitment without breaks. We also had brunch with the in-laws early that morning, who were in town from 4 hours away for one day only. I was in contact with plenty of people in my life that day, probably a dozen in fact, who I had previous commitments to. All while holding my breath that my stomach didn't stage a mutiny on me (it waited till Sunday, thank goodness ). It was not the kind of day where anything below #3 on the priority list gets done.

I did call my mother to apologize. I explained a bit more about the stomach virus and the crazy schedule. I am having lunch with her and my aunt and uncle this weekend to make up for the birthday dinner last week. She sounded a bit frosty and didn't ask if I was feeling better which she usually does. At this point there's not much else I can do as far as I see it.

I can certainly understand why a person in that situation might not call back to chat.

But if I were the one in your shoes, I would consider my not listening to the message to be a mistake. (I make mistakes all the time--I can live with that.) Because my reasoning *for myself* would be that listening to the message really doesn't take that long.

I think the key here is that you decided there would not be anything of any substance in the voicemail. And this time you were wrong.

That set off the entire chain of events. Only you know how risky that decision was. In this instance, you "lost" the gamble.

(Also, I don't think there's a real need to apologize for missing the party; to me the "offense," if it can be termed that, is the "not listening to the substance of the email." Not that I'd want to say to my mom, "I'm sorry I didn't play your message." That would probably tick my own easy-going mom off, if I said that to her. So were I in your shoes now, I'd leave well-enough alone, and try to remember to actually listen to the voicemail next time--and THEN wait several days to return the call.)

(As I said, my own reaction is probably greatly colored by the fact that my mother never, ever called me just to chat. There was always some sort of "business" that prompted the phone call. And that is true of me as a mom as well, and of my DD. We don't make contact unless there's actually info to flow one direction or the other.)

In general, I think it's a bit self-defeating to do something like not check your messages. I agree that a better method is to have an outbound message requesting an email or text. LadyL, I'm sorry if I missed this - have you told your mother you would prefer a text? Does she have that capability?

My gut reaction to the calling multiple times thing is that it is absolutely not something that would ever occur to me would be necessary.

It's one thing if you honestly don't receive it. An email gets lost in the ethers, you aren't near a cell phone tower, someone gets the wrong zip code and a letter isn't delivered. . . that happens. Yeah, it's inconvenient, but it's not really anybody's fault and nobody really is rude.

It's another thing if you receive a communication but choose to ignore it. I don't think there is really any difference between not listening to a voice mail (assuming that you are aware of the fact that you have one) and not reading a text message, email, or personal letter. Even if you are pretty sure that it isn't time-sensitive (and/or that it doesn't require a response), I think you should check within 24 hours if you are able.

Even if you are pretty sure that it isn't time-sensitive (and/or that it doesn't require a response), I think you should check within 24 hours if you are able.

I agree.

And personally I consider myself able to check a voicemail in about 20 seconds, so there aren't many things that I would allow myself the claim as a legitimate excuse for not checking the moment I that the voicemail was there. Being in a meeting or a conversation, perhaps, but I don't look at my phone at those times. I only look at my phone when I am actually free to do so politely.

Didn't LadyL say that her mother usually called multiple times if something was urgent/important? She didn't this time, hence LadyL's assumption that it was the usual checking in sort of phone call

If I were in LadyL's shoes, that fact would explain why I goofed. It would not be the thing I cited to say that my mother was wrong to have used that form of communication, or wrong to be miffed at me that I'd ignored a communique from her.

I wanted to add that if you didn't feel you had the time to call her, another option would be to shoot her a quick text "Hey, mom - super busy all day today. Saw you called! What's up?" That way, you can shift it to your prefered method of communication, your mom gets a call back, and hopefully you would get the info you need.

I wanted to add that if you didn't feel you had the time to call her, another option would be to shoot her a quick text "Hey, mom - super busy all day today. Saw you called! What's up?" That way, you can shift it to your prefered method of communication, your mom gets a call back, and hopefully you would get the info you need.

Nice! And that also might slowly train your mom to *believe* that a text is the best way to get to you.

I wanted to add that if you didn't feel you had the time to call her, another option would be to shoot her a quick text "Hey, mom - super busy all day today. Saw you called! What's up?" That way, you can shift it to your prefered method of communication, your mom gets a call back, and hopefully you would get the info you need.

That's a great strategy, but only works if Mom has a texting plan and knows how to use it.